Bandages
by subduedfangirl
Summary: Hanji looked up to see Levi standing in the doorway. By the rise and fall of his shoulders, Hanji assumed that he'd ran here, although she couldn't guess why. [Written for Levihan Week 2014. Prompt: Red.]


**A/N: **It's only 9 PM where I am, so I say that this still counts for Levihan Week! With the week I had, completing three of the prompts isn't too bad. I still have ideas for the others, but we'll see whether or not I'll have time to finish those up. Anyway, I'm glad I could participate this year! All I have to say about this fic is that I have a headcanon about Levi being a worrywart. ...Don't look at me like that.

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><p>Hanji sucked in her breath through her teeth. Whatever Moblit had put on her arm, it <em>stung<em>. She picked up the next loop of bandage with careful fingers, determined not to drag it across the wound and recreate that stinging pain. However, going slow turned out to be even worse; it felt like Hanji was peeling the skin right off her arm.

She squinted at the deep red scrape that covered most of her right arm. Beads of blood were still forming in the small spots where the salve had spread thin. Still, Hanji was impressed by the results of Moblit's first aid skills. She couldn't see a single speck of dirt, and the bandage had been nice and tight. It was almost a shame to have to change it, but it had gotten so blood-soaked on the journey home that Hanji didn't have a choice.

She gritted her teeth and grabbed the next part of the bandage, pulling it over her arm as fast as she could. Hanji hissed through her teeth again, waiting for the burst of pain to fade before touching the next loop.

The door to her room slammed open.

Hanji looked up to see Levi standing in the doorway. By the rise and fall of his shoulders, Hanji assumed that he'd ran here, although she couldn't guess why. He walked across the room, frowning, and shoved a bloody piece of cloth into her face. "What the hell is this?" he said.

"Uh—" Hanji looked up at him, not sure how to respond until she recognized the yellow underneath the blood. She squinted at it. "What are doing with my shirt?"

Levi's eyes moved to her scrape, and he dropped Hanji's bloodied shirt into her lap. "Never mind," he said. "I think I can guess." Levi stooped down, his free hand grabbing her wrist and pulling her arm straight. Hanji winced at the movement, biting her lower lip, but managed not to make a sound as Levi looked over the wound.

"How did you get this?" he asked.

Hanji swallowed, trying to keep her voice even. Her arm was burning. "I was trying to get someone away from a Titan," Hanji started, "but I kind of screwed up when I pulled them away and hit a tree instead." She paused, remembering the impact and the aftermath. She'd lost track of how many times the soldier had thanked her while Moblit had patched her up. "Most of the blood on my shirt is probably theirs," Hanji finished. "Dumb, huh?"

Levi didn't answer, turning her arm over. Hanji gasped with the burst of pain from the movement. More blood pooled on the surface of the wound, and Hanji saw Levi's jaw clench.

"Why haven't you changed this yet?" he asked, pointing with his chin towards the half-removed bandage.

Hanji inhaled, giving herself a second to find her voice. "I'm not really good at this kind of thing," she admitted, trying to smile to lighten the mood.

Levi took the end of the bandage in his own hands, unwrapping it at a careful and practiced pace. Hanji focused on his hands, which helped her ignore the small tugs on the exposed wound as he moved up her arm.

"So why were you going through my laundry?" Hanji asked.

Levi paused to glare at her. "I was going through the entire Legion's laundry, shitty glasses."

"You do _everyone's_ laundry?"

"My squad helps," Levi said, as though that explained everything. "If someone doesn't wash those uniforms after a mission, then it's only a matter of time before this whole place smells worse than the sewers in Sina."

"Huh," Hanji said. "I always wondered who did that." She bit the corner of her lip before continuing. "So… How did you know it was my shirt?"

Levi pulled off the last part of the bandage before meeting her gaze. "What?"

"I mean…" Hanji gestured in the air with her other hand, looking up at the ceiling. "There's a ton of bloody shirts in there, right? So how did you know that it was mine?"

She looked back down, but Levi avoided her gaze. He reached for the clean rolled bandage that Moblit had left on the bed next to Hanji. "I just did," he muttered.

Hanji started to smile as he wrapped the clean bandage around her arm. "Were you worried about me?"

Levi pulled a little too much on the end of the bandage, making Hanji jump. "No," he said, still not looking at her. "If you'd died, it would've gotten around."

Hanji held her arm steady and didn't say anything else. He was right. At the end of a mission, sometimes no news was good news.

Still, Hanji hadn't forgotten Levi's heaving shoulders when he'd burst through her door without knocking.

Levi tied off the end of the bandage at her wrist, finally looking back at her with a neutral expression. "Can you move it?" he asked.

Hanji bent her elbow, touching her hand to her shoulder without any pain. Levi's eyes followed her movement. "You're really good at this," Hanji said, stretching out her arm again and turning it over. "You'll have to teach me sometime."

"I will if it means that you won't bleed all over your clothes," Levi said, standing up.

"I told you, that's not what happened," Hanji said, still checking her range of motion by stretching her arms above her head. "Hey, if you can pick out my shirt in a pile of dirty laundry, do you think that you can find my gear in the repair shed? I want to fix the cylinder I bent mysel—"

Hanji was cut off by Levi grabbing the back of her head and pressing her forehead to his collarbone. She felt a slight weight and realized that Levi was resting his head on top of hers. "Just shut up for a second," she heard him say.

Hanji was close enough to count the threads in his shirt, but she didn't try to move away. "You _were_ worried about me," she said, her own voice coming out muffled.

His hand tightened on her hair. "I said shut up."

Hanji closed her eyes and relaxed against Levi. She did feel a little bad about making him this concerned. It really wasn't anything much, just a bad scrape after making a wrong move. Still, Hanji promised herself that at the end of the next mission, she'd make sure that Levi knew that she was fine.

And knowing that he was okay would give her some peace of mind as well.

"Hanji."

"Mm?"

"Why is your back red?"

"Huh?" Hanji pulled away, reaching behind her. She could feel the slickness of blood seeping through the cloth there too. "Oh. I forgot to tell you. I messed up my back too." Hanji turned back to Levi to see that he'd crossed his arms. "Levi?"

"Stay put," he said, heading back towards the door.

Hanji blinked, not understanding. "Where are you going?"

Levi opened the door. "To get more bandages," he said, and slammed it shut behind him.

Hanji sat in the ringing silence for a moment. "Yeah, you're not worried at all," she said to herself, her smile wiping out the remaining bits of pain.


End file.
